Cleaning up the Front Yard

The white peach tree is always calling this time of the year. It had a real bumper crop but it is yielding just a few tree ripe peaches at a time. I always like to wait until the skin can come off in big sheets before I pick them. This means the fruit under is nice and soft and sweet. Sue thinks the white peaches are too sweet and really prefers the yellow ones.. but white is what we got this time of the year. Down the pike when the other trees plug in, we should have July Elbertas or Fay Elbertas this time of the year.

The next set of pluots are coloring up nicely and we should be up to our arm pits in pluots soon.

I have been cleaning up the front yard area today since the weather has moderated significantly. Today I think that we will be lucky to reach 90 degrees. I have been working on the iris collection. The main job is to cut down the current leaves in a cheveron shape so that the new side shoots on the iris plants may take over the role of bloomers. the greener is only good for one year of flowering.. then the tuber gets old and send out multiple side tubers to produce the next years flowers. This leaves last years leaves in a dried out or semi dried out state.

I also planted some mint in the garden. I dug a hole ready to take a 5 gallon plastic pot. I put shade cloth over the holes on the bottom of the pot. Next I filled in dirt in the pot as it was seated at ground level in the garden. Then the mint went into the pot with a little enhanced soil in it. Mint is highly invasive in this climate. so I am hoping that it will take off but will be limited to the space in the 5 gallon can. The shade cloth at the bottom will keep the roots from invading the rest of the garden. Or so the theory goes.

Have a great day..

pat